(ThyBlackMan.com) Question is…overcome what? Is it tyranny of oppression, injustices and inequality or is it the noxious stimulus of something else? It was 1863 when physical enslavement was supposedly abolished, and albeit [chattel] slavery essentially was, slavery in of itself under the guise of different names…continued for another 100 years…finally dribbling to an end in the early 1960s.
Many people black and white alike are indubitably ignorant about what racism is. Racism is about [structuring] social, political, and economic circumstances. Psychological and cultural circumstances such that one race can take advantage of another. One race can enhance itself at the expense of another. It has little to do with overt race hatred, or negative attitudes or the projection of racial stereotypes. Racism involves the power of one race to impose its [will] upon another.
Racism isn’t contained in the words and attitude of a people it is contained in the total ideology of the American institutionalized systemic. The power to control the fate and destiny of another people. If we are one nation, why are many treated so unequally? If the flag is supposed to represent equality and justice, then it should be for all Americans and not for just a privileged legion of people. Anything less serves as a reflection of ethnocentric bias. When someone tries to tell you how to protest they are not acting in your best interest. When a black voice is raised opposing oppression…those who are comfortable with our oppression…are the first to criticize us for daring to speak out against it.
There’s a long-standing contention in America which need to be addressed…we all, in this 21st century…are victims of a pernicious historical legacy of which we had no control, but are affected by it nonetheless. Pooh-poohing this national calamitous patrimony, being in denial, doesn’t resolve anything.
What’s never addressed is that during slavery the enslaved were subjected to both physical and [mental] enslavement. The institution of mental slavery, which is far worse than physical enslavement…has NEVER been grappled with. And this is where the hoodwinking and bamboozling of Black America begins and has yet to come to an end; and where modern day White America is complicit in continual evolving circumstances that’s never been eradicated. No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it thus it is a gross error in judgement for Black America to continually look to its oppressor for answers which is NEVER to be forthcoming.
For centuries it has been of a political and societal necessity conditioning African-Americans…to think backwards…to be dumbed down. Mental slavery is a state of mind where discerning between liberation and enslavement is twisted. Where one becomes trapped by misinformation about self and the world. What makes it far worse is that the chains are invisible.
Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery. None but ourselves can free our minds ~Bob Marley
Many in Black America dismiss the true significance of its polemical embrace of the N word, there is ONE and only ONE reason why African-Americans cling to such a pejorative term…the users are genetically predisposed…to embrace the evil, immoral, contemptible term.
Slave masters paid a great deal of attention to the education and training of the ideal slave. In general, there were five steps in molding the character of the enslaved: (a) strict discipline, (b) create a sense of inferiority, (c) belief in the master’s so-called superior power, (d) acceptance of the master’s standards, and, finally, (e) a deep sense of his/her own helplessness and dependence. At every point this education was built on the fallacious belief in white superiority and black inferiority. Besides teaching the slave to despise his own (African) history and culture, the master strove to inculcate his own value system into the African’s outlook. In a desire to maximize the profits of his investment, the slave-master strove to develop the perfect slave, physically and [mentally].
The N-word represents carnage, dehumanization, objectification to African-Americans thus embracing it gives the user…and race…the wrong self-image and self-definition. Embracing or condoning usage of the N-word is approving the total description of it, sanctioning the evil deeds and carnage perpetrated upon the black race past, present and future. Let’s be clear about one thing, n**ga is ghetto vernacular or Ebonics for n**ger. Attempts at pseudo-intellectualism to justify embracement and maintenance of the N-word drills a message that African-Americans are powerless, of lesser moral and intelligence, detaching us from our sense of power and reality.
African-Americans who don’t use the term, but condone use of it by their peers need to understand indifference is the epitome of evil. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented, we owe it to our ancestors to hold their struggles and sacrifices in the highest of esteem and not allow embracement of a word that dehumanized and objectified them, regardless of the user’s skin color. Blacker than coal, whiter than snow, use of the N word by ANYONE should be an emphatic NO NO. To jump up and down about inequality and injustice yet simultaneously embrace a white supremacy term (the N-word) goes beyond the realm of conscientious stupidity.
Presently, African-Americans are misdirected, scattered and leaderless. For the past 30 years the voices of dissent…in the black community…have been silent against rap music, and its relentless messages denigrating women, drug use, violence. The promotion of positive reinforcement through the airwaves to convince a kid that use of the N-word and behavior that might send them to prison is normal…perpetuating continual decline of moral and character values.
First order of business is a need to recognize the enemies from within, there is an element within Black America that provides aid and comfort to the oppressor, refusing to reach back and help their own. For their loyalty they are rewarded with privileges and benefits unobtainable by grassroots Black America. They are sell outs and do more harm to the preventing of equality and justice than the oppressor itself. They are the modern day bred sycophants of the Meritorious Manumission Act and are looked upon…by their manipulators…as stupid pigs that grunt and squeal the chants given them to maintain white domination whether they be truth or lies.
Secondly, recognizing that the NACCP, Urban League have no economic program, no theory, no program, no plan. This isn’t accidental it’s all by design. Black America spends more than a trillion dollars annually yet it’s funding by white contributors that keep the NAACP and Urban League afloat…so long as paternalism reigns…there will never be an economic program, theory or plan enabling Black America…to OVERCOME. We either become self-empowered, or continue to moan, groan, beg and plead throughout…ETERNITY.
Staff Writer; H. Lewis Smith
This talented brother is the founder and president of UVCC, the United Voices for a Common Cause, Inc., http://www.theunitedvoices.com author of Bury that Sucka: A Scandalous Love Affair with the N-Word, and the recently released book Undressing the N-word: Revealing the Naked Truth, Lies, Deceit and Mind Games https://www.createspace.com/4655015
Also follow Mr. Smith on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/thescoop1.